San Francisco sinking Millennium Tower has a concerning window crack

The building has been given the nickname “the leaning
tower of San Francisco.”
Eric
Risberg/AP

• An apartment owner reported a crack in his window in
  Millennium Tower, the tallest concrete structure in San
  Francisco.
• The building has been
  sinking — and
  tilting — for many years, with local
  developers arguing over the cause of the damage.
• Structural issues may continue to appear unless
  engineers follow through on an expensive plan to
  retrofit the building.

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At 58 stories and 645 feet high, the
luxury Millennium
Tower is the tallest concrete structure in
San Francisco. It’s also one of the most unstable. 

On Saturday, an apartment owner detected a
large fissure in his window on the high-rise‘s
36th floor, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Earlier
that day, residents
reported hearing a series of creaking noises, followed by a
loud pop.

As of Tuesday, the building’s management company had 72 hours to
report on the issue. Though officials blocked off part of the
sidewalk, a spokesperson for the Department of
Building Inspection said there was no safety risk for
pedestrians. 

It’s concerning news for inhabitants of 301 Mission
Street, who have already had to contend with the fact that
their building is sinking. In 2016, an independent
consultant
found the tower had sunk 16 inches and tilted 2 inches
to the northwest since its completion in 2008. 

By 2018, it had sunk an additional inch and tilted another
12 inches. The builders
originally anticipated that the structure would
sink only 4 to 6 inches over the course of its
lifetime. This rapid shift has led to speculation that the
building’s facade is separating from its interior, making it
vulnerable to an earthquake or fire. 

Stress gauges have been used to measure
floor-to-ceiling cracks in the parking garage of the Millennium
Tower.
Eric
Risberg/AP

While the Department of Building Inspection has since
determined that the tower is safe to live in, residents are
concerned about their investments. When the building first
opened, its units sold for anywhere from $1.6 million to
more than $10 million. Since then, around 100 condo owners

have each seen a $320,000 drop on average in their apartment
value. The high-rise has also endured a string of lawsuits,
including
one spearheaded by the homeowners’ association. 

Developers have gone back and forth over who’s to
blame.

Millennium Partners, the real estate company behind the
tower, cites the 2010 construction of the recently-completed
Salesforce Transit Center as the reason for the sinking. The
developers
contend that construction workers pumped too much water out
of the ground while the transit center was being built, causing
the sand to compress and the tower to settle. But
the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, which oversaw the
center’s development,
argue that the sinking started before they broke
ground.

Earlier this year, engineers
proposed a solution to the tower’s structural instability: a
project with a price tag up to $500 million that involves
anchoring the building to bedrock, which is
more compact and tends to shake less than sand.

Until then, residents may
continue to witness unsettling damages, such as cracks in the
basement or malfunctioning elevators, as the tower continues to
shift.